<p>This article traces the history of the programming language SIMULA from the 1950s into the 1970s, focusing on the formative years between 1962 and 1967. It offers no technical appraisal of the language per se. Rather, it is a sociotechnical analysis aimed at exploring the broader history of the SIMULA project. The article asserts that technological change should be studied in a contextual perspective. Thus the politics surrounding the project and the prehistory of SIMULA are given ample attention.</p>